Just occasionally, as you walk beside river, stream or lake, a flash of blue, turquoise and orange hurtles through your eye line, often accompanied by a strident ‘peep, peep, peep’.

As quickly as it appeared, this electric blend of colours has gone, leaving just a retinal image which quickly fades to uncertainty — did I really, or was it just a trick of the light?

For many, this is often the only experience they have of one our most beautiful birds, the Kingfisher. To see it perched or diving for food takes either a lot of luck or patience, but for those blessed with either, it’s an unforgettable sight.

Kingfishers nest in holes driven into the banks of the waterways they frequent and often the tunnel can extend to over 50cms before it opens out into the nest chamber.

It’s here the Kingfisher lets itself down, as its diet of fish (a breeding pair can catch upwards of 100 per day) results in the chamber being filled with heaps of partly digested fish and bones, not to mention the fishy results of its indoor toilet. Housekeeping leaves a lot to be desired in Kingfisher society.

Harsh winters can decimate the population as slow-flowing streams and still waters freeze over. The winter of 1962/63 was a particularly bad period when over 75 per cent of our Kingfishers perished.

However, as they may raise up to three broods a year, their numbers can soon bounce back to reasonable levels and recent estimates put Britain’s population at around 6,000 pairs .

At first sight, the sexes seem identical, but if you can see a Kingfisher close up and settled, look carefully at the bird’s beak. Females have a reddish lower mandible while the male’s beak is all black. It’s when the birds fly that this elegant little bird becomes truly a jewel as its full range of colourful plumage sparkles with flashy iridescence, transforming even a dull day into something very special.

Keith Clack Oxford Ornithological Society